


Blow the Moon Out

by pareidoliajules



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-09
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 17:22:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1175783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pareidoliajules/pseuds/pareidoliajules
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darren and Chris are witches, who have more riding on them than they know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my CCBB partner, Overcaustically, who did the fantastic art for this piece--he did it over his birthday and it still looks incredible. Another huge thanks to my beta, Eva, without whom I would be a worse person (and this a worse story), plus the CCBB mods who were incredibly patient and wonderful throughout this whole thing.
> 
> And thank you, dear reader.

Resident New Yorker, male, writer, gay, witch. If Chris Colfer had to pick five identifiers, those would be them. He was also a nerd, an older brother and a son, but most of those things didn’t directly impact him on a day-to-day basis, unless it was a Wednesday, in which case his nerd was out in full-force due to the Star Wars Club at college holding its meetings that night.

Chris was a part-time student at NYU, working his way through a double major in Creative Writing and Performance Studies, but it was slow going, even with a bulk of his gen-eds completed at a community college back in Clovis. He could only attend part time due to having to work two jobs just to keep up with rent and his portion of tuition; that had been the deal he’d made with his parents when he’d left Clovis over a year ago to strike out on his own. Between his work, his parents, loans and occasionally his grandmother, Chris was managing to stay afloat, at least financially.

Witch-wise, not so much. Chris had the power of incantation, which was about the broadest power a witch could have; he could dabble in almost anything, although he had yet to find his true gift. His grandmother had trained him, since familial magic almost always skipped a generation; it also almost always passed to a female, but Chris supposed that Hannah had enough to deal with without powers that randomly exploded outward on top of everything else.

His grandmother was the source of his current concern. She was addled, of course; she was a Seer, but as she aged her powers both took more out of her and became less accurate—so when she called him one night and told him to be ‘wary of the falling darkness’, he kind of took it with a grain of salt. As she got older her powers became less focused, which meant she was able to See the past as well as the future—when she began screaming about a man named Hitler who would try to take over the world, the family explained to the nursing staff that it was the Alzheimer’s acting up—which it was, but they couldn’t tell the staff that their grandmother was actually revisiting the time when what she was Seeing was true.

All the same, his grandmother’s warning lingered in the back of his mind, and Chris knew that he should at least check it out and see if there was anything to her warning, even if it wasn’t very specific. That was how he ended up situated in the big mushroom chair in Daisy’s Bakery & Café on his day off, laptop balanced on one knee and his Witch’s Almanac open on the other, although to any passersby the latter just looked like a nondescript college textbook.

Something dark was approaching New York, and it was looking for trouble. That was all his grandmother had been able to tell him; her vision had been short but it had badly shaken her. Witches, as a whole, tended not to help each other with witch-related matters, even within the same family. Covens, as thought of by the media, did not exist, and hadn’t existed for thousands of years. That was why the Council existed, after all.

Chris just hoped his poor grandmother didn’t get in trouble for telling him to be on the lookout for something evil; it’s not like that was terribly specific advice, anyway. Most of the average witch’s life was spent being on the lookout for something evil.

Although there were rules against witches teaming up together, put in place long before Chris was born, the magical community of New York City had found ways around the edict. There were several completely online, completely anonymous, untraceable communities that sprung up and were shut down again every few weeks, as a way for the witches in the area to warn each other when something serious went down—or, Chris had noticed, when something personal was going wrong and they just needed support.

That was the thing he wondered about sometimes, if The Council really had the right idea with keeping everyone separated. Being a witch was hard, and doing it alone was harder. Shaking his head, Chris flicked away from one website and moved to another, a somewhat incomplete listing of the magical creatures and monsters that had been spotted in the New York City area in the last two months. There was the usual (goblins, a dryiad or two in Central Park, and several kelpies spotted in the Hudson), one or two unusual suspects (an actual mermaid and an elf), and the usual rare creature (a Pegasus), which Chris never really believed, because witches could still lie and still start rumors, and he was sure someone got a big kick out of the witches who took lists like this one as gospel and spent huge chunks of their time and a lot of their magic trying to find the metaphorical golden goose.

Chris was pulled from his reverie by the waiter arriving with the biscuits he’d ordered. Chris looked up to accept the plate, which was pleasantly warm, and made the mistake of looking up at the man who’d served him.

It was like an electric shock. All of the hairs on the back of Chris’ neck stood up, and he took the plate automatically but couldn’t quite get words to form.

“Is there anything else you need?” the guy asked, brushing his hands on his apron, although Chris doubted if that would clean them since the apron itself was covered in flour. “How’s everything tasting?” he asked, nodding to Chris’ half-drunk cup of cappuccino.

“Good,” Chris managed. “Thank you, uh, Darren,” Chris said, eyes flicking down to the nametag pinned to the apron.

“No problem! You’re Chris, right?” Darren said, crossing his arms easily over his chest. “You’re a regular! Daisy talks about you all the time,” he added with a jovial chuckle. Chris nodded and set the biscuits down.

“I should…” he looked down at his book and laptop, then back up at Darren. “Um, thank you, though,”

“’Course! Give me a shout if you need anything!” Darren bounced off then, gracefully moving between tables and booths until he slipped into the kitchen and the door swung shut behind him.

That guy, Darren, was a witch.

Chris leaned slowly back in his mushroom chair, heart pounding in his ears. There wasn’t anything inherently dangerous about meeting another witch, but this witch—knew him. Knew his name, knew he was a regular. Worked in one of Chris’ scarce safe spaces. And Chris wasn’t gifted with an especially accurate witch-o-meter, but he’d felt… powerful. It was his power that had startled Chris in the beginning, and that made Chris nervous. He’d never met another witch who felt that strong, not his grandmother or his best friend or anyone.

The thought of his grandmother set a cold stone of worry in his stomach, and he suddenly wasn’t hungry for the freshly-made biscuits that were totally worth how expensive they were. What if the ‘falling darkness’ was—was that guy? What if that was what he had to be wary of? Could that witch have been the dark thing his grandmother had warned him about? The timing seemed too coincidental to have any other solution. What did that other witch mean for him? As Chris began packing up his stuff, Chris turned that question over in his mind. What _did_ it mean?

Chris’ eyes found the doors to the kitchen again, where he could now pick out Darren’s voice, even from across the café. Darren was singing a song that Chris didn’t recognize, and part of him felt like nobody who seemed that nice could be something bad enough to cross into his grandmother’s Vision, but the logical part of him knew that was the kind of thinking that got witches killed.

Chris packed up his stuff, but he couldn’t leave until he’d taken at least a bite of the biscuits. They were his favorite, after all.

 

Violence was never Chris’ first choice. As a witch gifted with Incantation, he had more options than some other witches might have had in similar situations; his grandmother, for example, was gifted with Sight, a gift that had only gotten faultier as she aged. More often than not her visions showed the past instead of the future—instead of showing her next week, his grandmother would startle, her eyes would go milky, and she would start going on about ancient Egyptian Pharaohs.

Non-magic folk called it Alzheimer’s, because as she aged, the cost of her visions, whether they were past or future, was a dwindling grasp on the present reality. It may very well have been Alzheimer’s _also_ , but his mother assured him that his grandmother’s time as the most prominent Colfer witch was fading.

Chris had gotten an uneasy feeling in his stomach at that, because that meant his time as Colfer family witch was approaching; neither of his parents nor his sister had inherited the gift, which was unusual but not especially exciting. It was rare for a male to inherit the gift, and rarer still for there to be two witches alive at the same time in a family for as long as Chris and his grandmother had shared the family power, but his grandmother was tough, and Chris was glad she was holding on as well as she was.

That being said, he still had a very real, very present problem that was very much his own. His grandmother had done what she could to warn him, and the rest was up to him. His gift was what he made of it.

In addition to Incantation, his grandmother had also given him minor training in the divanatory arts. He didn’t have any of her natural skill, but all magical creatures could develop any magical skill if they tried hard enough. Chris had been reading the tarot cards almost since he could read at all.

He stared doubtfully at the box of tarot cards on his bookshelf for another long minute, then shook his head and moved over to his couch, turned on the TV, which was still on Bravo! from the night before, let it play, and picked up his laptop. He closed out of the research windows he’d been looking at earlier that day, placed an online order for pizza and began to work on his actual job.

(700 words on the strides made toward equality in the past year was so pathetically beneath his level he almost incanted the computer to write it for him, but that would have been more energy than he would’ve had to spend just writing it.)

He ate his pizza when it arrived, set aside the finished essay, and fell asleep on the couch until the theme music from one of his guilty pleasure shows woke him up. He threw away the pizza box after it was over, glanced once more at the box on the shelf, then shook his head at himself. There was nothing he could do about it tonight—he needed to plan. He needed a definitive course of action before he started anything, one way or another. And before he planned, he needed to sleep.

 

Chris couldn’t go back to Daisy’s, at least not yet, which sucked, because it was kind of his favorite. He didn’t even realize he was heading there until the sign was in view, bright purple with white lettering and a yellow flower marking the apostraphe; he had to abruptly stop, get cursed at by someone on the busy New York sidewalk, then quickly duck into the nearest building, the lobby of a hotel.

The shop was three blocks away from work, and less than five from main campus. Not only did that mean this witch was dangerously close to a serious aspect of Chris’ life, it meant that Chris would have to find an even closer café for his afternoon pick-me-up.

Groaning, Chris forced himself back onto the street and made himself walk past the coffeeshop, hoping he could blend into the chaos of the crowd. He tried to tell himself to keep his eyes ahead and his posture relaxed, not as tense as he felt, but he couldn’t help himself—he kept glancing over his shoulder, in through the huge glass windows that caught the two-o-clock light in the most perfect way, trying to catch a glimpse of the waiter from the previous day. Or hoping he didn’t, he wasn’t quite sure which.

Either way, he passed the coffee shop without incident and let out a relieved breath in spite of himself. He didn’t know what he expected to happen, or what he wanted to happen, but he was almost positive he was happy he hadn’t seen the other witch. It also cemented in his mind that he couldn’t live in fear; he had to be proactive about this threat and face it head on. He was a witch, after all, and witches did not hide in the shadows: they used them.

Chris made it to his office without incident, but he was so absorbed in his thoughts and his plans that he didn’t remember to duck into one of the other cafés on his way to work, so his walking into his office without his normal to-go cup earned him several well-meaning askance looks and some polite, playful inquiries about his health. He chuckled and brushed them off, then slipped to his desk and began to work. Or at least, he attempted to work: even with his mind wired from his brush with potential danger, he didn’t work well without his coffee.

 

Chris had Saturdays off, and he decided to use that to his advantage. He had been preparing all week; his pockets were stuffed with spells, scribbled on notebook paper and bound together with small rubberbands, just in case things got ugly. As it was, Chris had currently Incanted himself invisible, incorporeal to passing strangers on the sidewalk. He was across the street from his café, staring at it dubiously—what was he going to do if the witch was actually working? He had built protections into this incantation, even from fellow magical eyes, but he didn’t know his foe’s gifts. He barely knew how powerful he was, and even then, all he knew was that on a scale between ‘not at all powerful’ and ‘very powerful’, Chris had felt that Darren leaned more toward ‘very’ than ‘not’.

When his watched beeped the half-hour, Chris shook his head at himself and moved across the street, passing unseen and unfelt through cars and a small poodle and the crowds on either side of him. He drifted through the door, knowing not to open it and call attention to his lack of physicality. Chris stood there for a few moments, surveying the scene before him, the flurry of activity behind the counter and the practiced motion of the waiters around the room and through the little outdoor seating area in off to the side.

None of them looked familiar, and Chris kind of marveled at how clearly the other witch’s face stood out in his mind, and how he knew, he just knew, that he would know him from across a room if he saw him. But none of these people were him, so Chris moved through the room and managed to find the employee break room, where the schedule was scribbled on a chalkboard on the back of the door.

Darren: M/Tu/W/F/Sun, 2-10. Chris grinned to himself, feeling accomplished. Not only did he know his schedule, but by default he also knew when Darren would be arriving and leaving, which would presumably give him the best moments for attack. Or, at the very least, the best moments for observation.

After all, he couldn’t just go after the guy in plain sight. Non-magic folk generally saw what they wanted to see—a gun, a knife, a flashbomb that nobody had actually seen, but what else could it have been? There were more magical battles in the city than people might think, but that didn’t mean Chris had to be stupid about it. There were rules against publicly displaying one’s witchcraft, and Chris didn’t need the Council on his tail along with whatever this witch had in store for him.

Chris took a picture of the schedule on his phone, even though it was fairly simple to remember, just to be on the safe side. Anxiety was creeping into his stomach, and it was taking more and more of his energy to maintain the incantation around his body, so he decided that was enough snooping for the day and crept back out. He lifted the incantation in the alley across the street; nobody on the sidewalk even noticed the young man materialize as if from nowhere. _New York, huh?_ Chris thought to himself as he crossed the street again, this time in plain sight and avoiding cars as any average human had to. Now that the location was cleared, he could pull his laptop from his bag and get some work done.

 

He stayed there until closing, partially watching back episodes of _America’s Next Top Model_ , partially editing a classmate’s essay and, mostly, doing some further research in how to fight and win against a fellow witch. He read, unfortunately, the parts that included successful ways to disarm and kill said witch, but the thought turned his stomach; witch or no, he didn’t want to kill anyone. It would be enough to learn what Darren wanted and then chase him out of his city.

Hopefully.

Chris was two minutes away from the shop, heading down to the subway when Darren stepped out of the nearest alley and grabbed him, yanking him off the street. Chris let out a startled squeak but nobody even really turned their head. _New York, huh._

“Oh, shut up,” Darren said, releasing him after he’d pulled him bodily down around the corner, wedged between two buildings. “Who are you?”

“Who are _you_?” Chris huffed back, shoving Darren as far back as he would go, which—wasn’t far, the guy was thicker and stronger than he looked and he only moved about a halfstep away. Chris’ hand automatically went to his pockets, where his bundles of spells were waiting for him; he had them memorized, but he did so much better when he could just read the words in front of him.

“I told you, I’m Darren,” he answered, holding up his hands in a sign of surrender, his eyes darting down to Chris’ hands in his pockets. “And if you could, like, not blow me up, that’d be great,” he added, flicking his eyes back up to meet Chris’. “I just want to talk to you.”

Chris scowled. He’d imagined this different, better. He was supposed to be the one doing the surprising. He was supposed to be surrounding his enemy with fire that got closer and closer until he confessed his true intentions. Chris was thrown off kilter, and he needed to get back to solid ground.

“I’ll think about it,” Chris answered, left hand already sliding the rubber band off the collection of spells there. “You’re—are you a warlock?” Chris asked, brushing his thumb over the sheets of paper. He could visualize which was which in his mind’s eye, it was just a matter of choosing how to handle the situation…

“I’m a witch!” Darren retorted, vaguely offended but sounding mostly proud. “I thought—I thought you had noticed that. I noticed _you_ ,” he added, grinning a grin that was stupidly charming and Chris almost felt a smile tugging up in return. “But, um, I don’t want to like—take over or anything. I’m just here for work.”

“Work?” Chris echoed, arching a delicate eyebrow. “What work?”

“I’m going to be a musician,” Darren answered, a certain light coming to his eye that Chris recognized because it was the same light that came to his own eyes when he started talking about writing.

Didn’t mean he could be trusted, though.

“A musician,” Chris drawled, fingers closing on his chosen spell. “What do you play?”

“Lotsa stuff,” Darren said with an easy shrug, going so far as to relax against the alley wall, one leg folded carelessly behind the other and arms crossed over his chest. “Guitar, I was trained in violin, I can play the piano, my sax is decent…”

“Your _what_ is decent?” Chris squeaked, feeling heat come to the back of his neck. Was that—had he just propositioned him?

Darren raised his weirdly-triangular eyebrows, then repeated, slower, “Sax. Saxophone. Why, what’d you think I said?” he asked, even though he was grinning like he already knew. Chris scowled again, shook his head, and pulled out his chosen spell.

Darren’s posture shifted instantly, both feet planted solidly on the ground and his arms uncrossed, but not threateningly; if anything, Chris would have read his position as defensive, not offensive.

“Hey, I thought we had something going here,” Darren said slowly, keeping his hands in front of him. “Look, dude, I don’t want to hurt you, I just want to know why you want to hurt _me_ ,”

“Because something is after me, and I need to find out what it is. _Who_ it is.” Chris grimaced and muttered the incantation—and Darren was frozen in front of him, arms still outstretched. He could still see, still blink and breathe, and he would ‘melt’ after a little while, but not until Chris was safely home.

“I’m sorry,” Chris said, surprised that he meant it. He opened his mouth, but shut it again—he didn’t know what he was going to say, what he wanted to say. So he turned and left, rejoined the busy street, and as soon as he rounded the corner, broke into a run and caught his train back to his apartment.

He curled up with his cat when he got there, safe and tight under his blankets—how could he have not known Darren was there, waiting for him? His heart was thumping in his chest, a delayed reaction, the adrenaline finally catching up with him. Brian was squirming beneath his grip but eventually he gave up and started purring against Chris’ chest, which may or may not have been the only reason Chris relaxed enough to fall asleep.

 

Chris was extra wary for the next few days, but eventually his guard went down, little by little. He found a new coffee shop, and they still didn’t know his name or make his coffee exactly right, but there was a slightly smaller chance of running into people he’d cast spells on there. It was a Thursday night, and Chris was just about to turn on some background TV to read to when there came a frantic, impatient knocking on his door. Who—

Chris frowned and glanced over at Brian, whose ears had pricked up at the noise but hadn’t reacted beyond that. All the same, Chris stayed still until he had a defensive spell ready, on the tip of his tongue, and then he stood up when the knocking intensified.

“Who is it?”

“It’s Darren,” came a panting voice from the hallway. “Please let me in!”

Chris’ eyes widened; he could still hear Darren’s breath in the hall, but it felt like everything else around him had frozen. The other witch didn’t sound angry, he sounded scared, but Chris knew better than to trust another witch—after all, he didn’t know what Darren’s gift was, he could have been playing an illusion or enchanting Chris’ mind—

Before he fully knew what he was doing, Chris’ hand found the doorknob and pulled it open: if it was an illusion or a spell, it was a very good one. Darren’s hair was curly even though it was soaked and plastered to his head; his brown jacket was dripping onto the rug in the hall and his pants looked like they had been on the receiving end of one too many a dash through puddles.

“Come in,” Chris said, surprising himself just as much as Darren. Years of witchly training didn’t overwrite the much more foundational training in manners that his mother had instilled from an early age, after all.

Darren stepped into Chris’ kitchen and looked around, giving a small, appreciative nod. “Nice place.”

It all felt so wrong, so sideways. Darren, another witch, was in his apartment, admiring the molding. It was just—weird.

“How did you find me?” Chris managed, crossing arms in front of him. All of the spells that he had prepared for their last meeting, unused, were in a pile in Chris’ bedroom and thus useless to him in case Darren was here to kill him—even if he didn’t look particularly murderous at the moment.

Darren scoffed as he took off his gloves and shoved them in his pockets; Chris had to stop himself from offering the heater to dry them. “You have, like, the easiest magic to track ever.”

Chris’ throat went dry. “Track?” he repeated, taking an automatic step back, then another when Darren laughed. It wasn’t a threatening laugh like the villains in the movies, he just seemed genuinely amused at his reaction.

“Yeah, it’s part of what I can do, sometimes. You incant, right?” Chris didn’t answer, but it didn’t seem like he needed to. “I’m a Soul-Speaker,” Darren said with a nonchalant shrug. “And I guess I’m pretty good at charming, too,”

“I bet you are,” Chris said, recovering himself a little bit. “Why are you here?”

Darren sobered all at once. “Because I saw the thing that—that you were talking about. The thing that’s after us.”

“Us?” Chris repeated, raising his eyebrows. “There is no _us_. I don’t even know you. There can’t _be_ an us, remember? You can’t not know about The Council,” he added, furrowing his brow. There were rules about witches grouping up; there hadn’t been a proper Coven in the United States for at least a hundred and fifty years, because the last time witches had begun to segregate themselves into families, things had gotten ugly. When she was teaching him the history of magic, where he came from, Chris’ grandmother had emphasized how many witches were lost in the last Witch War, and how needless it had been.

“Of course I know about The Council,” Darren retorted, rolling his eyes in exaggerated exasperation. “But you’re the only witch I know in the area and—and I saw this thing, the thing you thought I was,” he finished, hugging his brown leather jacket closer around his frame. Again, Chris wanted to take it from him and hang it up, offer him the couch and a blanket, but now he realized it wasn’t just manners: it was Darren’s gift, getting in his head.

Chris wondered if it was a conscious effort on Darren’s part. Either way, he resisted the urge and shifted his weight on his feet; it didn’t seem like Darren was here to attack him, but that didn’t mean he could afford to let his guard down.

“What thing was it?” Chris asked. Maybe it was all an elaborate trap to get Chris to listen—either way, he would need to call his grandmother and tell her about Darren, but he couldn’t do that with him in his kitchen.

“It was—look, I’m freezing, can I make us some hot chocolate or coffee or something?” Darren interrupted himself, blinking those wide, innocent and excitable eyes at Chris, who was nodding his assent before he even realized what he was doing.

“In the cupboard,” Chris said, sighing. “Are you doing that on purpose?”

“Doing what?” Darren asked as he pulled two mugs and the box of Swiss Mix from the cabinet.

Chris gestured uselessly with one hand. “Manipulating me,” he said, frustrated that it was the closest he could get to how he felt—because he could almost feel Darren’s gift, his _soul_ , getting in his head and trying to put him at ease, trying to get him to accept what was happening, when that was about the last thing Chris wanted to do.

Darren stilled and set the cups down, then turned to look at him, somber again. “I don’t mean to do it, it just kind of—does. Most people don’t even—most people aren’t even aware of it. I’m sorry, I’m on edge because—it was freaky and I just—I’m sorry. I’ll try to stop.” Darren took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment, and then just like that the pressure to please in Chris’ stomach dissipated and Chris felt like he could breathe again.

“Now,” Darren said, opening his eyes with a hesitant smile. “Can I make some hot chocolate?”

Chris thought about it for a second, his eyes flicking from Darren to the cups to back to Darren, who seemed to be honestly asking, rather than expecting.

“Yes,” Chris said after a few moments. Hot chocolate couldn’t really hurt much, and if Darren _had_ seen whatever it was that was out there, he would need him to want to talk. Even if he was another witch, and even if The Council would probably see it as them ‘working together’—it wasn’t. It was just gathering information.

Darren grinned, brighter than a 500 watt bulb. “Thank you,” he said, and he seemed to mean it. He turned and began to fill the cups with water from the sink, then put them both in the microwave. Chris moved into the living room and perched in the armchair, keeping his eyes on Darren in case he tried anything. In the arm of the chair was an emergency defensive spell that Chris could use if things got ugly, but he was beginning to think that maybe that wouldn’t be necessary.

Chris jumped when Brian leapt into his lap—normally the cat was fairly antisocial and hid in Chris’ closet on the rare occasions that Chris had visitors, but Brian was watching Darren with as much fascination as Chris thought a cat’s face could portray.

“Oh, hey, who’s that?” Darren asked as he carefully removed the cups from the microwave and set them on the counter. Brian flicked his ear in response and twitched his tail.

“This is Brian,” Chris answered, absently rubbing under Brian’s chin. “He’s obnoxious.”

“He’s kinda cute,” Darren said simply, moving into the living room with both cups, walking with carefully measured steps to keep from spilling. After he set them on the coffee table, Darren knelt next to Chris’ chair to pat the top of Brian’s head, which elicited a purr from its recipient. It surprised Chris; as much as Brian disliked guests, he _hated_ for those guests to touch him—which had happened on occasion, like the first time his mother visited after Chris adopted him.

Chris’ face must have looked fairly askance, because when Darren glanced back up, he chuckled. As he moved to the loveseat across from the chair, he picked up his cocoa and took a sip. “It’s part of my gift. Animals love me.”

“Even old, fat, grumpy ones?” Chris asked, earning another laugh from the other witch; it awarded Chris a surprising amount of pleasure, making Darren laugh, even though it didn’t seem to be particularly hard to make Darren laugh.

“ _Especially_ fat, old, grumpy ones,” Darren agreed, laughing again when Brian’s purring got louder throughout the room. “Anyway,” Darren said after a moment, his smile fading—it was only then that Chris realized he had been smiling too, because he felt his own slip away as Darren’s did. “About this thing I saw,”

“Right,” Chris agreed, feeling stupid for letting himself get off-track. “What was it, exactly?”

“I think it was a witch. Or a warlock of some sort. It at least looked human,” Darren added, giving an apologetic half-shrug. “I couldn’t get a very good look at it, it was dark and raining,” he explained, pausing for just a second before pulling a joking grin to his face. “It was a dark and stormy night…”

Chris shook his head, fighting the smile that threatened to break through his mask of reserved interest. “So, another witch. What did you see this witch doing?”

At that question, Darren seemed to shrink in upon himself and the light was extinguished from his formerly merry eyes. “I—there was this girl, a woman, another witch, she was fighting him,”

“Okay,” Chris prompted. Battles between witches were sad, especially if they ended in death, but they weren’t really his problem; there were too many in the city at large for one in particular to have caused his grandmother’s warning.

“They were going spell for spell, I think she was an Illusionist or something but she started using spells at the end. He kept just knocking through them, pushing them aside or letting them waft over him like he didn’t even feel him. It was like—he never came out of the shadows, and none of her spells could hit him. And then he did this…I’ve never seen magic like it before, it was like a _wall_ , and it hit her, it passed _through_ her and it was like she couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t move, I couldn’t help her, and then he picked her up and just…disappeared. Like they’d never even been there.”

Chris didn’t know what to say. Darren looked like he needed some comfort, some reassurance of some sort, but he didn’t know what to say or how to offer that particular comfort; Chris, generally, was not very good at “people”, especially distraught people.

“Did she die?” Chris asked after a long silence. “I mean, could you tell—”

Darren shook his head. “I could—I could still feel her, still feel her soul. Kind of. It was like she was there, and fighting, and then that wall hit her and it just…went away. But not like she died, because I’ve—I’ve been around death before, and I know what that feels like, for a soul. It was…like when someone yanks out your headphones, or when you know you’ve lost something and can’t remember what it is that you’ve lost. Like Neville, with the rememberall. That’s what it was like.”

Chris’ eyes grew comically wide. “You—you like Harry Potter?” It was just—too much. He couldn’t go 180 from the recounting of another witch’s possible murder to Harry Potter. It was just too much. Chris could feel his heartbeat in his palms.

Darren quirked a smile, but it didn’t have the same light it had earlier. “Yeah. Me and some buddies actually have this—never mind. That’s not really…important right now. So I came here, because I’m kind of freaked out. What should we do?”

Again with the ‘we’, Chris noted, but didn’t comment. The options were pathetically few, when he really looked at them. They could do nothing, which didn’t seem to be an option, judging by the look on Darren’s face when he’d entered the apartment. Chris could refuse to help Darren, but he knew that wasn’t the right choice—it certainly wasn’t the choice his mother or sister would want him to make. He and Darren could actually team up and try to find it together, but what could they actually do? They didn’t know the first thing about this other witch (if it even was a witch), other than the fact that it was probably a murderer.

“We should tell The Council,” Chris said with a sigh. Nobody liked talking to The Council, and The Council didn’t like talking to anybody; they usually only showed up when something had gone very, very wrong.

“They won’t listen to us,” Darren said instantly, shaking his head. “And even if they do, we might get in trouble for going to them together,” he added. “Remember the last time? That group of three or four witches all moved in together?” Darren shuddered; everyone had heard about The Council’s reaction to that stunt, and it had not been pretty.

“I remember. But we’re not really—we’re not really _working_ together,” Chris said, trying to convince himself that his plan was good just as much as he was trying to convince Darren. “We’re just—someone should tell them. Especially if this thing took a witch. That’s their jurisdiction, isn’t it? Maybe—maybe what you saw was part of a bigger thing, like the beginning of another war. They need to know.”

Darren was staring at him.

“What?”

“You really think there could be another war? Because of what I saw?” Darren asked, his amber-green-brown-gold eyes wide and, if Chris was right, afraid. Chris suddenly realized that he should probably be afraid too; this wasn’t like the war in the mundane world, nor like the war in the fantasy books that lined the shelves of his room. This was _real_ , if war was what was actually happening.

“I don’t know,” Chris answered. “But it’s a possibility, right?”

Darren nodded reluctantly. “And you _really_ think we have to tell The Council?”

“I really do. Besides, there’s always the possibility that they’ll be happy or something. We could get a…y’know, a reward or something.” Chris tried to sound assured, but he knew that the possibility of that, if it existed, was slim to none; The Council had been around for a long time, and they had never actually granted a boon to any witch, as far as Chris knew.

“Maybe,” Darren agreed doubtfully. “I mean, I guess they could be already working on it?”

Chris nodded encouragingly. “Right. Maybe we don’t have anything to worry about,” Darren smiled a little at that and seemed willing to let it go; he took the last sip of his hot cocoa and set the empty mug back on the coffee table.

“So you like Harry Potter?” Darren asked after a few quiet moments, the impish light back in his eye.

Chris rolled his eyes. “Yes, I do, but Darren, we’re not—we can’t be friends. I still don’t know if you’re not the thing that’s gonna try to kill me.” Darren looked hurt, and Chris felt bad. He knew in his heart of hearts that Darren was almost definitely _not_ the thing his grandmother had called to warn him about, but he couldn’t let go of his worries that easily.

“Right,” Darren said, his voice lacking the warmth that his first question had. “I guess I should go, then,” Chris found himself nodding, even though he still felt bad and still wished that he and Darren could actually have a conversation about Harry Potter and whatever else came up. It was for the best.

Brian disagreed. Before Darren could stand up, the cat leapt from Chris’ lap, over the table, neatly avoiding both mugs, and onto Darren’s legs, where he kneaded for a moment before plopping all 20 pounds of himself down, an effective anchor keeping Darren from leaving.

Chris blinked. “Er, sorry.”

Darren looked down at Brian for a moment, then looked up at Chris and smiled. “It’s okay,”

“He’s never—really done that before,” Chris said, feeling a bit weirdly possessive when Darren began to run his hand down the length of Brian’s back.

“I toldja, animals like me,” Darren said with a shrug. Brian mewed in agreement. “Can we talk or should I be trying to extricate his claws from my pants?”

Chris weighed the options—he could make Darren leave, which would both hurt his feelings and piss Brian off, or he could let Darren stay and maybe find out a little more about it.

Chalk it up to research, Chris thought as he shrugged. “Good luck with that. You’re pretty much stuck till he falls asleep,” he said with a small chuckle. “Did you say you wanted to be a musician?”

Darren beamed, clearly pleased that Chris had remembered. “I _am_ a musician, but eventually I’m gonna be, y’know, big. Maybe even do TV. And I want to be on Broadway someday, but I’m also gonna go on tour.”

He said it with such certainty Chris was almost jealous. He thought of his high school scripts and half-thought-out story ideas, and the ones older than that, the ones he felt in his bones but didn’t know if he could actually ever write. However small a chance Darren had of actually becoming a famous rockstar, Chris couldn’t help the feeling that the chances of his becoming a famous author were even smaller. He never had time to really write, and even if he did, the odds of getting whatever he wrote published were so astronomical that he sometimes got nauseated just thinking about it.

“That’s—a lot,” Chris said, raising an eyebrow. “Going to have some…” Chris waved a hand and wiggled his fingers. “Help?”

Darren blinked at him. “You mean like…like _magical_ help? Dude, no, haven’t you ever seen _Charmed_? That’s fuckin’ personal gain! You can’t do that, man. That’s—that’s like cheating, dude, no way.” Darren shook his head so hard his curls splashed water, which startled Brian right off his lap. They watched him run away, and then their eyes met across the coffee table and then they were laughing, and it felt so right and so natural that Chris didn’t even notice it was happening.

“I’m sorry, I should have gotten you a towel or something,” Chris said, getting up and disappearing into the bathroom for a minute.

“No, it’s cool, I should be getting back,” Darren said, and if Chris didn’t know any better he would have said it sounded like he was bummed about that. “Thanks, though,”

“Well, if you want—” Chris said, but by the time he got back into the living room, his front door had clicked shut behind him and he heard the steady sound of boots thumping down the hall toward the stairs. “Stay,” Chris finished lamely, arms lowering the towel he was carrying. Brian crept back into the living room and mewed reproachfully.

“Shut up, cat,” Chris said with a sigh, taking the towel back into the bathroom. It was probably for the best, anyway, that he left; after all, they still weren’t a team. Chris would need to call his grandmother, do some research, and figure out what exactly was after them.

But they had been talking about going to The Council. Chris reasoned that he could just go alone, even if Chris didn’t ever remember a witch approaching them without being approached first. The Council was intimidating, but Chris wasn’t exactly scared of them, so to speak—they were just so secretive about who and what they were, not to mention what powers they possessed—that Chris felt like he was about to jump off the edge of the cliff.

As he climbed into bed later that night, a half-written essay sitting unfinished on his computer and Brian fed and purring next to him, Chris wondered if maybe jumping wouldn’t seem so scary if he had someone to jump with.

 

Darren worked three jobs so he didn’t have to feel shitty about taking his parent’s money, which was paying for his (second) college degree. One of his jobs was at Daisy’s, where he’d met Chris (oh, Chris, let him tell you about Chris), another was at the local pet’s market (but he made sure it wasn’t one of the ones that used puppy mills) and the other was the school library, where he sat behind a desk and did homework.

His teachers all really liked him. Everybody really liked him. He remained friends with all his exes, and most of them would still have been down for whatever if he were to call them up and ask, but he never did (except maybe once or twice, occasionally). To most people who knew him in passing or as The Guy Who Plays Guitar Downtown Saturday Nights, he was a pretty open book. He had been told that he almost passed for surface level at first.

His roommate knew him well enough to know when something was nettling at Darren’s core. Joey and Darren had hit it off almost instantly, because Joey wasn’t afraid to call Darren out on his bullshit and Darren loved Joey all the more for it. They loved each other, immensely and for always, which meant Darren knew that something was coming when Joey sat down in the big ratty armchair and held out a beer.

“What’s going on, dude?”

Although technically the mundane population was not strictly supposed to know about witches and warlocks and everything, Darren couldn’t keep it a secret, at least not from Joey, and especially not after they moved in together. Darren, in general, wasn’t always the best secret-keeper, but he still liked to believe he was a trustworthy person in general.

“There’s this thing that’s going on,” Darren began, taking a sip of the beer. “And there’s this guy.”

Joey cocked a brow but didn’t comment; more than once he’d watched his roomie slink off with the male shirtless waiter at the club or the cute guy with the tongue ring, and they’d talked about it a little, but Darren didn’t really believe in labels and Joey didn’t care, so the conversation was short and, for Darren, pretty totally awesome, because it meant he could bring those waiters and pierced or tatted up fellows home to his place instead of always going to theirs.

“A guy, huh?” Joey propped his head on his hands and batted his eyelashes, clearly doing his best impression of a stereotypical teenage girl. “What’s he like, where’d you meet him, what’s his na—ow!” Joey rubbed his head where the pillow had hit it, but more out of reflex than any actual pain.

“Shut up. I mean—I mean, Joey, he’s a witch. Like me. Well, okay, not exactly like me because he has wicked spell-casting chops like he _froze me solid_ for like an hour and I had defenses and dude he’s got a cat and I was starting to get hives on my arms so I had to rush out of his apartment—”

“Woah woah woah,” Joey said, holding up his hands . “You were at his place? There are—he’s like you? I mean, I know there’s people like you , but I thought you must be the only one in the immediate area.” Joey blinked. “I wonder what the ratio is.”

Darren dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. “I don’t know, dude, but the point is that I found him because I saw this really terrible thing that I’m pretty sure he and I are going to team up against and fight.” Darren’s jaw was set, but Joey saw the familiar, manic gleam in his friend’s eye and then realized that gleam probably meant Darren doing something really fucking dumb.

“Fight? Fight what? You can’t—I mean, I love you man, but all you do is make girls fawn all over us,” Joey said, shrugging an apologetic halfshrug that didn’t really eliminate the sting. “And you do have the dog. The dog thing is kinda cool.”

Darren took a breath and let his annoyance ease out of his body with it. As he did so, a semi-clear Labrador appeared in a shower of mist next to him, tail wagging and looking between Darren and Joey expectantly. Without thinking about it, Darren rested his hand on the dog’s head and nodded.

“Yeah. The dog thing is pretty cool.” He grinned as he lifted his hand and the dog disippated back into nothingness. “But I think it’s another witch. Like, another another witch, a bad one. I saw it—I saw it hurt this girl and take her away.”

Joey went very still. “Did you call the cops?”

Darren shook his head. “It wasn’t—he didn’t hurt her with a gun or a knife, Joe. It was a bad guy that the regular police can’t fix.” Joey nodded slowly, although Darren could see—and feel—the confusion and fear beginning to grow in the center of his friend’s chest. “No, dude, don’t worry about it, though. Me and Chris? Me and Chris’re gonna go to the—go to like our police and, like, make sure they get on it. Okay?”

Although he didn’t seem convinced, Joey clinked his bottle of beer with Darren’s and moved in the armchair to have a better view of the TV. “Alright, dude, whatever you say.”

 _I hope it really will be okay_ , Darren thought to himself as a much smaller version of his spirit Labrador settled itself in the crook of Darren’s arm. _It has to be_.

In spite of everything, and in spite of his spirit animal’s best efforts, he still had nightmares that night. Sometimes, in his dream, it was he himself getting attacked by the shadow creature, and then eaten by it. Sometimes it was Chris, and sometimes it was his mother or brother, and every time ended with darkness, hot fear and cold sweat that woke him up so sharply he sat straight up in bed.

 

The next morning, Darren took a shower that was  twice as long as usual and called into all three of his jobs to tell them he was sick with the flu and wouldn’t be in for at least a couple of days. And then he got serious. Joey was at class all day (where Darren really should have been too, but he had bigger things to worry about), which meant that he could spread out all his things as much as he needed to.

Building a portal to The Council wasn’t easy. Building a portal anywhere wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, but if his mother was to be believed when she was teaching him, The Council didn’t really exist in any one place, if they existed anywhere. It was too much magic to be contained in the mortal realm, which meant it had to go beyond that: The Council was directly tapped into the universal magic lines, the same lines that connected even mortal person to other mortal person, and since those lines were everywhere and anywhere, so was The Council.

It wasn’t impossible, though. Darren set his stones up in a wide circle after shoving the furniture against the walls, then lit his candles in the order of the chakras, then pricked his thumb and let three drops fall into his mother’s silver goblet of purified water. He sat back, closed his eyes and began to focus on his breathing, the same way he usually began his meditation. He didn’t open his eyes as he felt the wind pick up (in his apartment) nor when he smelled what he was pretty sure was manure, and it wasn’t until he felt like he was no longer on the front seat of a rollarcoaster did he actually dare to look around him.

He was seated on a cold, marble floor in the same position he’d been in back at his apartment, but his candles, his cup and his gems were all gone, which made him wonder how exactly he would be getting back home. Darren stood up and dusted his jeans off and began to walk down the doorless hallway, following it as it rounded the corner.

In front of the only door was a person—or at least something in the shape of a person, since you could never really know for sure in a place like The Council Hall. As he got closer, though, he realized it really was a person. In fact—

“Chris?” Darren said, triangular eyebrows rising toward his hair. “What’re you doing here?”

Chris turned, looking half-guilty and half-ashamed. He had been reading the inscription above the door, which was written in a script he had only been able to understand part of, and that was only because he had incanted the door to speak to him.

“I’m—waiting to see The Council,” Chris said, trying his best to seem nonchalant. “What are _you_ doing here?” Darren gave him a look, and he looked appropriately chastised. “I just—I’m still not sure it’s a great idea for us to be working togeth…er,” the door behind him swung open just as he finished speaking, apparently of its own free will. The Councilroom itself was bigger than Chris had imagined it, and taller. Darren was perfectly content to stay in the hall and wait for Chris to do the talking, but The Hall apparently had other ideas, as he was pushed by nothing so hard he almost crashed straight into his fellow witch.

“Sorry. Place has a mind of its own,” Darren muttered, casting a dirty glance behind him as he and Chris walked down the hall. “Did you think it would look like this?” Chris shook his head, although he was clearly fascinated; The Councilroom itself looked like a mix between a church and a castle. The tall vaulted ceilings had stained glass windows going nearly from floor to ceiling on either side, interspersed with large, flickering torches on the wall and huge, twinkling chandeliers hanging from above. The large pillars that supported the ceiling looked too wide for Chris to even get his arms around, and they were impeccably carved from the same marble that made up the floor.

At the end of The Councilroom sat The Council, in all its terrifying glory. There were five, one for each area of the United States, with the Head Councilwoman seated in the middle, who spoke to all the other Councils around the world to insure international peace. On either side of her sat two other women, followed by two men, all of whom looked so intimidating Darren could almost feel his gift of charm shrinking into his body—or maybe that was just his dick, reacting to the icy glare the Councilwoman was sending them.

“Who asks an audience?” she asked, scanning her eyes down Chris and Darren. Chris was dressed much nicer than Darren was, Darren realized, taking a surreptitious glance over at the other boy. Darren’s dark jeans and black v-neck didn’t really compare to Chris’ slacks and striped button-up, and Darren couldn’t help but think that The Council would not only notice that, but remember it and use it as a reason to hate him.

Before either of them could get up the courage to speak, a booming voice answered the Council Councilwoman, sounding like it came from the rafters: “Darren Everett Criss, fourth generation witch and Christopher Paul Colfer, eighth generation witch. Seperately requested for the same concern.” The booming voice went silent, but the hairs on the back of Darren’s neck didn’t lie down, and he suddenly couldn’t rid himself of the feeling that they were being watched by more than just The Council in front of them.

The Councilwoman stood. She was tall, tanned and gorgeous, even Chris could recognize that. Her hair, dark brown and long, framed a round face and dark brown eyes. Chris didn’t know fashion, but he knew her power suit was just that—powerful, and meant to intimidate.

“We do,” Darren said, stepping forward when Chris couldn’t make his legs move. “I’m Darren, and this is Chris. We—we have a report to, um, file,” he said, faltering over the wording. The Councilwoman raised her eyebrow a fraction of an inch, then gestured with a hand for him to continue. “I saw this thing, a bad thing, fighting another witch, and then it… took her.” Darren went on to describe the attack itself, the darkness, and how it felt, although he didn’t explain exactly what his power was, nor how it allowed him to feel the things he felt.

One of the other Councilmembers squirmed in his seat and leaned forward, resting his chin on his closed fist. “And what exactly do you need us to do for you, Mr. Criss?” Before Darren could answer him, if he even had an answer, the Councilwoman held up her hand to silence him.

“We cannot help you.” She seemed oblivious to her fellow Councilmember’s confused, upset glances; she kept her eyes level with Chris’ and Darren’s. “We will not rush blindly into something we do not know about. If you can find out more, which I doubt that you will be able to, and if you can return to us, we will consider helping you. However,” she sat back down and pulled a pair of thick glasses to her face. “You know that there are rules concerning witches working together,”

Chris swallowed, and nodded. “We do.We—we were wondering if we could get an exception from that rule, just for this. Because Darren saw it and everything, but I have so much—I have a lot of books and I know how to research things and it just—it makes sense for us to work together,”

The silence felt suffocating, and Chris couldn’t even figure out why he had spoken or if he really believed what he said, but he felt like maybe it was just true, that they really would be better fighting this thing together.

“Please,” Darren said, taking a step forward. “I don’t know you, any of you, and I know you’re so much more powerful and way smarter than us,” Darren continued. “But we’re not planning on overthrowing you. We wouldn’t be here if we were, would we? We just—we just want to help people, because this thing is out there and hurting people and we think we can at least try to stop it, so you guys don’t even have to leave this room. Please.”

Chris could tell Darren was using his ability; it almost looked like Darren was glowing faintly, but it also could have just been the ambient light from the candles. He was so intense, his eyes unwaveringly pleading, and Chris thought maybe, maybe they had them.

“We will consider your words,” the Councilwoman said haltingly. “Leave us. We will inform you of our decision.” She waved her hand, and suddenly Darren was back in his apartment, alone, candles snuffed out and water evaporated.

“I didn’t even get to say goodbye,” Darren said aloud, leaning into his spirit companion when it appeared and licked his cheek. “How are they going to tell us? I mean, I guess we’ll probably know, if we get in trouble for hanging out, but…” Darren sighed and rubbed behind the dog’s ears. “This sucks. I hate those stupid rules.”

Darren shook his head and began cleaning up his mess; the stones went back into their boxes, the goblet was carefully rinsed out and the candles were returned to his special cabinet that was reserved for his rituals. He was trying to convince himself that there was no way The Council could refuse them; usually, his gift came naturally enough and he barely had to try to get people to fall over themselves to help him. Sometimes he didn’t even realize it was happening.

When he had been appealing The Council, he had been trying, and trying hard. He had felt each of their souls, some more faintly than others, with the strongest being the blond man at the end who had asked him that question, and the faintest being the Councilwoman, but he had felt them, and that meant that they had felt him. He couldn’t remember a single person who, when he had been intending for it to happen, had refused him what he wanted—except his mother, but she was his _mom_.

Darren just hoped it had been enough.


	2. Chapter 2

It took about a week for Chris to return to Daisy’s without fear of Darren. He hadn’t quite known what to do after the somewhat-disasterous meeting with the Council, but he hadn’t heard anything from Darren or from the Council, so he had decided to just carry on as normal. The following Wednesday he showed up at his normally scheduled time. When he did, he tried to pretend that nothing out of the ordinary had happened—he sat in his usual seat near the front window and put in his usual order, but it felt different now, because when his food was delivered—

“Chris!” Darren exclaimed too loudly, a huge grin alighting his face. “I didn’t think you wanted to—I mean,” Darren grinned apologetically and straightened his shoulders, then set down Chris’ coffee and biscuits. “After what happened, I wasn’t sure I was going to see you again,”

“This isn’t about you,” Chris answered lightly. “I need my fix. And it’s not like we’re… _doing_ anything. They can't get mad at us for this,” he added, trying to sound sure of himself but pretty sure he just sounded like he was trying to convince the both of them. “You can’t quit your job to avoid me,”

“Nor would I want to!” Darren agreed, grin still stupidly on his face. People were beginning to stare, but not the same way they did in Clovis, or even in most other parts of New York. It was rare that Chris gave people reason to stare—he didn’t have many dates, and he certainly wasn’t what people would classify as ‘flamboyant’, but when he did, people usually gave him looks of veiled contempt or disgust, or at least distrust and annoyance. In Clovis he was pretty sure it was just because he was gay or because he was with a guy, but New York was a little more progressive than that; New Yorkers just didn’t like PDA.

The people around them now were different from all that, though. An older woman nudged her friend and nodded her head to them, with an excited little smile on her face that spread to her friend, who let out a little coo. The young couple were watching them with fond eyes, and one of the other waitresses came by and tapped Darren on the shoulder and told him he could take his break.

“Thanks, Dianna!” Darren said with a chuckle, settling into the chair nearest Chris after he took off his apron.

“That was… this is so weird,” Chris said slowly, watching as the people around them returned to their lives and their business. “What was that?”

“What was what? Oh, with the—yeah, that happens sometimes,” Darren said with a nonchalant shrug. "It’s part of what I can do. People like me,” he smiled again, making Chris roll his eyes. “Most people anyway. Not sure what The Council thought,” he added, smile fading slightly.

“Me either,” Chris said, pressing his lips together before taking a sip of his coffee. “I wonder if we’ll even know if they do something about it,” he continued, closing his book but keeping his finger in it to mark his place. He had a paper due by Thursday and a movie to watch by Friday along with discussion questions to prepare, so he really didn’t have time to chat, but…

Maybe it was Darren’s power, or maybe it was just that Chris didn’t have many friends, but Chris decided to ignore his better judgement and maybe get to know the witch across from him.

“So what are you in school for?” Darren asked, nodding to the book in Chris’ hand.

“English, Creative Writing, with a minor in theater,” Chris answered, holding up the book. “For my 19th Century British Lit class,” he explained. “ _Frankenstein_ ,”

Darren’s eyes lit up. “That’s awesome! I’ve never read it, but I’ve watched _Young Frankenstein_ before,”

Chris laughed before he could catch himself, even though he thought his laugh was stupid and you could probably see his tiny little teeth. “According to my professor, that’s a pretty accurate rendition,”

Chris didn’t know how long they sat there for, but when the girl named Dianna came over and poked Darren in the shoulder, he realized that he didn’t care, either.

“Ah, right, sorry, Di,” Darren said, standing up and putting his apron back on. “Er, Chris, it was great to talk to you,” he said, brushing his hands on his apron again. “We should, y’know… maybe have a way to get in contact with each other, if they make a decision…?”

Chris blinked slowly. “Are—are you asking for my number?” He regretted it instantly because as soon as the words were out of his mouth he realized the connotation they had; a wave of awkwardness washed over him and settled in his stomach. “I just—I mean, because, you know—”

Darren waved him silent, although he didn’t laugh at him, for which Chris was suddenly and impossibly grateful. “I meant, I already wrote my number on that napkin, so don’t leave it lyin’ around,” With an over-exaggerated wink and playful firing-gun fingers, Darren left the table and disappeared back into the kitchen.

Chris watched him leave, then looked back at the table, and sure enough, scrawled on one of the napkins was a phone number and _DC_ , accompanied by a smiley face. Chris picked it up slowly, looked back into the kitchen, let himself smile and then shook his head and entered the number into his phone, even though he wondered what the C stood for.

Heart still thrumming merrily in his chest and cheeks still a little flushed, Chris tried to refocus on the text in front of him, but he kept zoning out, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to pay attention until he got it out of his system.

“Ash,” Chris said when his best friend picked up the phone. “I’m coming over.”

 

He had to wait a day because Ashley was actually out of town, but his classes on Thursday were finally over and he finally found himself tapping on the door to Ashley’s apartment. She opened the door after five or six plaintive knocks, eyebrow raised and lips pursed expectantly. “Colfer, you know this is me-time.”

Chris blinked twice in surprise, jaw going slack. Ashley’s face was covered with some kind of green cream, her brown hair was pulled back into a messy bun, and she was snuggled up in a white bathrobe with pink and purple and red hearts splattered across it.

“Oh—god, I didn’t—I’m sorry, I should’ve called, I’ll just—” Chris said, desperately trying to backpedal. He had thought they were at that level where he could just come over whenever he wanted (he had done it before, hadn’t he?), but maybe he just still didn’t really know how friendship worked. He hadn’t gotten the same socialization as everyone else in high school, after all, and sometimes that affected his life in the worst ways.

“Goddamn, boy, I’m kidding, Christ. Stop, stop giving me the frightened bunny eyes, get in here. What’s going on?” She shut the door after him and led him through the kitchen, where she picked two beers out of the fridge, shut the door with her foot, and then brought him back into the living room, where some romantic comedy starring two white people and the daily struggles of straight white life was playing in the background.

“What’s up?” she asked, handing him the beer, which he took even though he didn’t want to drink and also wasn’t thirsty.

“I met a guy,” Chris said slowly, not realizing how that would sound—thus he was pretty confused when Ashley’s eyes lit up and a grin spread across her face.

“Ooooh,” she said encouragingly, turning the TV off. “Tell me more,”

“What? It’s not—no, it’s not like that,” Chris said, shaking his head. “He’s a witch.” Ashley just gestured for him to continue, not getting the issue. When all Chris could do was make a frustrated ‘isn’t it obvious’ noise, she rolled her eyes.

“If he’s a witch, y’all already got somethin’ in common, dummy. What’s his name? Did you talk to him?”

Chris shook his head and set the beer down. “No, Ashley, look. Remember that thing I told you about with my grandma?” Ashley nodded slowly, and Chris didn’t continue until he saw the light of recognition flash in her eyes. “I think this guy might have something to do with that,” Chris paused. “And his name is Darren.”

“Nice name,” Ashley said absently, finally appreciating the seriousness of the issue. “But, okay, I understand. Did he seem sketchy? Did he try to sell you drugs, Christopher? Remember, _just say no_ ,”

Chris had to laugh at that, but he shook his head. “No, no. He—he works at Daisy’s, that café we went to that one time, remember?” Ashley nodded. “He works there, and he brought me my biscuits and it was just… weird. He felt really strong, Ash. I could almost feel his power, and that’s never… happened to me before.”

“A lot of things haven’t happened to you before, Colfer,” she responded, though not meanly. “But you’re right, that is kinda worrying. What do you want me to do about it?”

Chris paused, then offered a weak smile. “Well, first, could you wash your face? It’s like I’m talking to a cupcake.”

Ashley fixed him with a decidedly dangerous glare, which made him blush and almost feel bad, but she set her beer down and huffed on her way to her bathroom.

“I’m only doing this because it was time for it to come off anyway!” she called over her shoulder, making him laugh.

Chris heard the water turn on in the bathroom and looked around the living room—it was much the same as he remembered it, with the old brown couch, the TV and a gazillion DVDs along the back wall, pictures of her and her family (and one of her and Chris on the side table), plus the half-bookshelf near the door to her room, which to the non-magical eye contained nothing but cookbooks and the occasional romance novel. Chris, however could make out the various books on arcana, as well as the bag of crystals and the deck of tarot cards tucked carefully against the wall of the top shelf. On the top was an actual crystal ball, which Chris had balked at the first time he visited her apartment, but she had assured him that it wasn’t real—she’d bought it at a Renaissance Fair before she’d even had her first Vision.

Just as Chris was debating turning the TV back on, Ashley came out, sans face-mask but with some socially acceptable clothes. Her hair was out of its bun and its usual ponytail, and she stretched her arms and mimed cracking her fingers.

“Alright, kiddo. What do you need me to do?”

“I was wondering if you could try to See something, about this guy. Or maybe do a tarot spread? I don’t know. I don’t even know if it’s something I should be worrying about, but I can’t help but think it must be…”

She picked up the deck and returned, and Chris settled down to get comfortable. A lot of times, Ashley required the stuff he found superfluous when it came to spreads; whenever he had asked her in the past, she had insisted on candles and the whole nine yards. Since she ran a small shop that offered the various occult necessities, ranging from palm reading to tarot to star charts and things involving gems that Chris didn’t have the time to try and understand, it made sense—he had asked her once what all the incense and mood lighting did to help her visions, at which she had laughed, reminded him that it was rare for a customer to trigger an actual Vision, and told him it just helped the ambience. This time, thankfully, she didn’t bother with any of the extra stuff and just began shuffling the cards.

“This might be kind of weird,” Ashley said thoughtfully, “But this might work better if you had something of his, even if this one’s gonna be pretty simple. Only four cards,” she added, giving Chris pause. Only four? This guy could be a disaster waiting to happen, and only four cards? The cute guy in Creative Writing that had complimented Chris’ writing style had earned a nine-card spread, after all, plus at least two days of analysis and one experimental Facebook search (which had turned up disappointing results).

Ashley, better than almost anyone, could read Chris’ face. “Do I tell you how to cast all your fancy spells? No, I don’t. Hush it, Colfer,” she huffed, taking a moment to recenter herself. “Now, do you have anything of his?”

“No, I—wait, does his number count?” Chris pulled the napkin out of his back pocket and handed it to her, knowing that his entry in his phone wouldn’t make enough of an impression; there was too much of Chris’ own energy for her to be able to pick up on Darren’s.

No sooner had Ashley touched the material did she jump like she’d been shocked, then freeze in place, a small hiss escaping her lips. Her eyes, normally a warm chocolate-y brown, were now a silvery white, almost like she had no iris at all.

She snapped back out of it a moment letter, the napkin floating to the ground between them. It wasn’t the first time Chris had witnessed her having a Vision, but most of them weren’t quite so unexpected at this point.

“Ash?” he said softly. “Are you—are you okay?” Ashley was looking at him with wide eyes, and it seemed like his normally quick-witted, sassy friend was, for once, at a loss for words.

“Huh?” She said, shaking her head quickly. “No, yeah, I’m fine. Um, that kinda took a lot out of me, though, so maybe tarot another time or something?”

“Oh, uh, yeah, totally, absolutely,” Chris agreed, even as she was already standing up and putting the cards back on the shelf—he got the impression that even if he had objected, it wouldn’t have mattered. “Can I ask—what did you…?”

Ashley sat on the couch behind him and turned the TV back on; he squirmed up to be sitting next to her, watching her face closely as she turned the volume down a little and took a sip of her beer.

Finally, she turned to look at him, usually merry eyes serious and somber. “You’re right that this guy’s important to what’s going on, but not in a bad way. Not in a bad way at _all_. You should probably stick close to him. He’ll be—he’s important, Chris.”

Chris felt himself nodding, even though he didn’t really understand. “Okay, but what did you—what did you See, Ash? What’s going to happen that I should, that we should know about?” But Ashley just shook her head and refocused on the TV.

“You should drink your beer,” she said. “And tell me about this guy from the beginning.” Gone was the friendly, playful banter from earlier; this wasn’t his best friend asking for details on the cute guy he just met, this was Ashley the Seer wanting more information about another witch.

But she’d said he wasn’t involved in a bad way. She’d said that he should stay close to him. Remembering his grandmother’s warning and knowing better than to argue the point, Chris launched into his story, from the beginning.

 

Chris had, at Ashely’s prompting before she kicked him out of her apartment, sent Darren a text message, a simple ‘hey, it’s Chris’, and before Chris had even made his way to the bus stop, his phone was vibrating in his pocket with a response. He pulled it out and had to smile at the exclamation points in Darren’s response; he was a very enigmatic texter, and Chris wasn’t even surprised. By the time he got to his home block, they were discussing the pros and cons of the new Star Wars movie, and there was none of the new-friendship awkwardness that usually came with the first real conversation.

Chris thought they were done, though. They still had more to talk about, of course, because they hadn’t even hit a lull or a slow-down when Darren mentioned that he had to go to work. Chris had told him to have a good shift and then gone to prepare himself dinner—he was halfway through chopping garlic for stirfry when his phone let out the twinkling song that let him know he had a phone call.

Phone calls always made him a little nervous, because his friends would usually text him—that meant that that, usually, it was his mother, and sometimes that meant something was going on with Hannah, and nothing scared him more than something going on with his little sister. He left the knife and the cuttingboard on the counter and moved over to where he’d left his phone on the arm of the couch.

To his surprise, it wasn’t his mother’s contact picture that was displayed, but the basic no-picture picture, and Darren’s name.

“Hello?” Chris said, unable to hide his surprise and curiosity.

“Hey,” Darren said after a moment that sounded like he was closing a door. “So I’m working at the café,” he began.

“I really can’t have caffeine this late at night,” Chris said, sounding apologetic if only because he was still kind of confused.

“No, I know, me either, I wouldn’t ever sleep,” Darren chuckled, sounding staticky through the line. “But I was wondering how late you’d be up?” he finished. Chris didn’t know what to say—was this a booty call? It didn’t seem likely (judging from the way he’d seen Dianna and the other waitresses and even some customers fawning over Darren), and it certainly went against Chris’ logic that he was something desirable, so he decided not to even ask that particular question.

“Um, I dunno, why?”

“Well, I mean, when do you have class tomorrow?” Friday were his slowest days (Wednesdays and Tuesdays his busiest and longest), but Chris still had papers to write and a test to study for…

“Not till 2,” Chris admitted after a moment or two of silence. “Why? What’s going on?”

“I was just wondering if we could hang out,” Darren’s voice lost some of his bravado, and Chris instantly felt bad for make it seem like he wasn’t interested—because he was, he needed to get to know Darren better, if just from a safety point of view. Keep your friends close and all that, assuming Ashley was right and Darren was actually a friend.

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Chris said, running a hand through his hair. “Um, hang out and do what?”

“I dunno, watch a movie or something. I’m thinkin’ Disney, or maybe—ah, I gotta go. See you later!” There was a click and his phone beeped at him, indicating the call had been ended. Chris blinked and put his phone in his pocket, then shook his head and returned to the kitchen.

Darren certainly was persistent, he had to give him that.

 

Chris had eaten his dinner and made decent headway on one of his essays when his phone started ringing again. He picked up without even looking at the caller ID, too focused on his paper to notice.

“Hello,” Chris said into the phone, setting it between his cheek and his shoulder so he could continue to type.

“Chris? Hi, it’s Darren. I was just wondering if you still wanted to hang out…? I know it’s late and it’s cool if you don’t, I had to close down the store instead’a gettin’ out early like I wanted to…”

“What? Oh! Oh, right, yeah, no, that’s fine! Um, yeah, we can watch a movie, that’s fine. Did you say something about Disney earlier?” Chris remembered. “I have some, but are we talking like Renaissance Disney or Classic or New Age or—”

He was cut off by laughter on the other end, as well as the sound of wind and chatter and general outside-New York noises. “I don’t care, dude.” Darren paused, then added, “Well, actually, do you have _Finding Nemo_?”

Chris smiled in spite of himself. “Of course I do.”

Darren arrived about half an hour later, a backpack slung over his shoulder and wide-rimmed glasses underneath his curls framing his face. He looked tired but seemed chipper enough, and if he was being honest Chris was glad to see him, too.

After they quoted most of the movie together, Darren yawned and turned to look at him. “So Chris,”

“Yeah?” Chris said, smile still in place even as the credits were rolling.

“What do you want to do with your life?” Chris glanced down at his phone—one AM. A late-night talk? He’d read about them in the teen books that he’d been too old for at age ten, and seen them on TV, and understood they were supposed to be part of the necessary relationship-building process, but he’d never really had one before, not even with Ashley, and certainly not with anyone he knew in high school.

“I want to write,” Chris said honestly, pulling his legs up around himself and peering over at Darren. "What about you?”

“Music,” Darren said simply. “If it’s musical, I’ll be happy,” he hummed and offered a serene smile. “What do you write?”

“A little of everything,” Chris answered, knowing how vague that answer was and not caring, because while it was vague it was also honest. “I have some stories I’ve had in my head forever, some realism, some fantasy, a horror thing…”

“A horror thing?” Darren seemed intrigued, arching a triangle-shaped eyebrow over at him. “You? I’d like to read that,”

“See that,” Chris corrected with a fond roll of his eyes. “If it ever gets written, it’s gonna be a screenplay or something,”

“Ohohoho, a movie,” Darren said, grinning now. “I getcha. Maybe I’ll audition for it,” Chris could tell he was kidding, but the thought of Darren being involved in his life long enough for that to be a possibility gave his stomach a funny sort of flopping feeling.

“Do you wanna be in movies?” Chris asked.

“Maybe. Maybe TV, maybe Broadway, but I’m gettin’ kinda old for it,” he said with a half-shrug. “Never say never, though, you know what I mean?”

Chris smiled a little. “Yeah, I do. Never say never.”

 

They ended up staying up and talking until three or four, which meant that the buses and trains across town to take Darren home were long since out of service. Not wanting to risk his fellow witch’s head out on the streets of the city, Chris had offered his couch, which Darren had tried not to take, but his argument had been rather undercut by the fact that he was both already laying down and mostly asleep. He managed to kick off his own shoes, but by the time Chris had come back out with a fresh t-shirt, a better pillow and some blankets stacked precariously in his arms, Darren had been out cold.

Darren had work the next morning, which meant he was up before Chris—when Chris discovered his empty apartment that morning, his stomach went kind of hollow until he noticed the note clipped to the fridge, thanking him for the movie and the couch and the conversation.

He didn’t have a reason to throw it away, so Chris decided to leave the note where it was, knowing that he would have to look at it probably more than once a day.

Unfortunately, Chris did have class, as much as he would’ve liked to stay in and contemplate his life. It was his only Friday class, and it was his creative writing class, which meant that it was moderately more tolerable to sit through, considering it was what he wanted to do with his life—even if it was an hour-and-a-half class instead of the normal fifty minutes. He hadn’t finished the assigned reading for the day, but he was confident enough in his ability to bullshit that nobody would notice.

They also critiqued stories, including the one written by the cute boy that had complimented Chris once. He felt it was only fair to repay the compliment after class, as he was closing up his bag. The guy, Jack, positively beamed, revealing a perfectly straight set of white teeth and a smile that made his bright green eyes sparkle.

“Thanks, dude,” Jack responded. He seemed to have something else to say, though, because he waited for the girl next to him to leave and then came over to Chris, who had dropped his notebook and had to pick up the papers that fell out of it.

“Oh, hi,” Chris said, straightening back up when he noticed Jack standing over him. “Um, what’s up?”

“I just wanted to tell you that I think you have a really strong voice,” Jack said, smiling because Chris was sure his face was the picture of surprised embarrassment; he didn’t know how to accept a compliment and never really had. “And if you’re free sometime, I’d love to have coffee and chat,” he added. “Are you free?”

“What, like, now?” Chris said, his voice coming out higher and a little harsher than he’d entirely meant it to. “I mean, yeah, I’m done with class…”

“Great!” Jack said. “I know a great little place,” Chris managed a smile, trying to smother his rising nerves—he didn’t know how to, he didn’t, he hadn’t ever _done_ this before, had he just been asked out, _what_ , what was happening?

Chris and Jack managed to make small-talk until they arrived at the ‘great little place’ he knew, which was _of course_ Daisy’s.

“I come here all the time,” Chris said in surprise as they walked in. “Do you?”

Jack nodded as they found a booth and dumped their bags. “Yeah, pretty much,”

“Weird that I’ve never seen you,” Chris said, following him up to the counter. “I actually work pretty close to here, it’s just so convenient,”

“Where do you work?” Jack asked as they got in line, eyes on the menu against the back wall. “What should I get?” he mused, tucking his hands into his pockets. Chris didn’t have much of an eye for fashion, but he knew that Jack knew how to dress, with dark-washed jeans and a t-shirt for a band that Chris had heard of but hadn’t ever heard.

“I like the biscuits,” Chris answered absently. “And I work over in the journalism building, I do some editing on their magazines,” he added. They were at the front of the line now, and Chris was rummaging for his credit card when he heard a too-familiar voice repeating back Jack’s order.

“That’ll be 6.89,” Darren said, breezily sliding Jack’s card through. “Thanks! What can—oh, hey, Chris,” he said, hazel eyes flicking from Jack to Chris so quickly that Chris wasn’t even sure it had actually happened. “The usual?”

Jack turned his head slightly to look at Chris, then seemed to give a small shrug when he decided to go down and wait for his coffee. He patted Chris on the shoulder on his way, and then he was gone, waiting down by the pick-up counter.

“Who’s the guy?” Darren asked, an impish grin coming to his face as he pressed buttons without looking at them on the computer screen.

“His name’s, um, Jack. He’s in one of my classes. We’re just—hanging out,” Chris said, unsure why he felt he had to be defensive about it. “He’s a writer, too,”

Darren nodded and handed Chris’ card back. “H seems…tall,”

“He is. And nice,” Chris added, taking his card back and putting it back in his wallet. “Thanks,”

“Have fun,” Darren said as Chris moved away, a smile still in place, but it didn’t reach his eyes. The whole exchange was strange—not that every exchange thus far with Darren hadn’t been that way, but this time it just felt _different_ in a way that Chris couldn’t put his finger on.

Maybe it was because in spite of everything, they were actually getting closer, regardless of what the Council had said. It was just that they had so much in common, Chris mused as he joined Jack at the table. Darren had talked about his music the night before, and even without yet hearing any of it, he could tell from the way his eyes had lit up when he mentioned it, Chris could tell it was—it was his passion. Maybe it was Darren’s gift influencing him, but there was no way that Darren couldn’t be great at something he cared so much about.

It settled in his stomach, then, that he decided he wanted to get to know Darren for real. He glanced over his shoulder, but the other boy wasn’t behind the counter anymore. Probably working on the food, Chris decided, turning his attention back to Jack, who seemed to be talking about a fraternity party he’d been to a few weeks prior.

“What about you? What have you been up to lately?” Jack asked, maybe noticing that Chris was just nodding along while his head was somewhere far away—or maybe he just wanted to know and Chris was being paranoid.

“Oh, you know, not much,” Chris said with a light shrug. Definitely not dealing with The Council, a dark threat to the himself, Darren and who knew who else, while also trying to keep up with his real life. “Just school, work, kinda boring, really,”

That was the problem with dating non-magic folk, or as they were referred to in some circles, ‘mundanes’. Those were circles that Chris went out of his way to avoid, because he didn’t think there was anything mundane about not being magical at all—in fact, a lot of the time, he felt that those born without technical magical gifts like his or Darren’s or Ashley’s, were in a lot of ways, more magical than they were.

Before Jack could respond (with something charming and understanding, Chris was sure), Darren came over to their table, that same wide-eyed, panicked jack-rabbit look in his eye the night he’d come over to Chris’ apartment in the first place.

“Hey, I’m sorry to interrupt, but, um, Chris, I need to talk to you.” Chris didn’t even question it. He just got up and started to follow Darren—the only reason he came back was because his wallet was still sitting on the table next to his half-drunk coffee.

And then he noticed Jack’s face. “Ex-boyfriend? Current boyfriend?” he guessed.

“What—who—Darren? Oh, no, he’s just—he’s Darren. But, um, this is kind of an emergency. So, um, reschedule?” Chris tried his best for a winning smile, but he wasn’t sure how well it played, and he could practically feel Darren’s anxiety burning into the back of his head. “Look, I gotta go but, um, I’ll see you in class!”

And then Chris caught up with Darren and let himself be guided into the employee lounge. It was deserted except for three people who were so bloody and bruised that Chris only barely recognized them: The Council.

“This is…are you guys okay?” Chris asked slowly, looking at Darren with wide eyes.

“No,” the Councilwoman said, standing up slowly. Her left arm was bent at a funny angle, blood was smeared across her face, and Chris could tell that she’d been crying, but she continued speaking. “We need your help.”

 

“We don’t normally do this,” the blond Councilmember who had spoken up in their meeting explained, whose name they had learned was Chord. They were sitting in Darren’s living room, with bandages on the wounded Councilmembers and untouched drinks all sitting in front of them on the coffeetable. Thankfully, Darren’s roommate wasn’t home—although Darren had mentioned then night before that his roommate knew, Chris still didn’t think he would take kindly to walking home onto this mess.

“Do what?” Darren asked. “What’s going on?”

“We tried to track down the thing you reported to us,” said the other man, Cory, from his place in the corner of the couch. The Councilwoman was nestled in the crook of his chest, and his arm was wrapped protectively around her; for someone who commanded so much attention and respect and had honestly frightened Chris a little bit upon their first meeting, Lea looked surprisingly normal in Cory’s arms.

“We didn’t _try_ , we _did_ track it down,” Lea corrected with a sigh. “And we barely escaped. I don’t even know if we damaged it,” she added grimly. “And it still got…”

The three of them looked down then, a shared grief and guilt washing over them that Chris didn’t need Darren’s gift to sense. They had lost someone, then, maybe more than someone, to the creature that Darren had alerted Chris to—which, from the sound of it, was the same thing Chris’ grandmother had warned him about. He realized faintly that the two women he’d noticed before weren’t with them, and it didn’t seem likely that they were waiting for them to return to the Council Hall.

“So what do you want us to do?” Chris asked, trying to be as gentle as possible. He was sitting in the big armchair, with Darren perched on the arm next to him; Chris as normally pretty particular about his personal space, but with Darren he had barely noticed, and even then he had only noticed the comfort it provided, when usually he experienced the opposite reaction.

“We’re going to help you unlock your true gifts,” Chord said, looking between Darren and Chris with what Chris could only categorize as pride and maybe, in some weird way, excitement, which was fairly impressive considering how banged up he was.

“What does that mean?” Darren asked, eyebrows coming together over the bridge of his nose. “We already have—”

Lea shook her head, but it was Cory that spoke. “No, you have what most witches have, your basic instinctual magical ability. Most people don’t push it beyond that, but there is _so much more_ ,”

Lea nodded her agreement, smiling encouragingly up at him before she spoke, “And we’re going to help you get there,” she added, the same focused excitement that Chris had noticed on Chord’s face now appearing on hers.

Chris was starting to get a bad feeling about this.

 

It turned out the Council needed to be at least a little healthier before they could attempt any part of the ritual they were planning. That meant explaining to Joey (who Chris had the absolute pleasure of meeting) that Chris’ cousins had been in a nasty car accident and could they maybe crash here since his apartment was so small? Joey had of course acquiesced, but not without some serious eyebrow-raising at Darren, who had simply tried to shrug it off.

It took three days before all of their healing potions and focused magical efforts made enough of a difference for the Council to perform. Darren gave Joey thirty bucks and told him not to come back—which he gladly took, after he gave Darren some mock-serious advice about how to sleep with guys, if that’s what he was talking about. Darren had practically shoved him out the door.

Chris had shoved most of the furniture against the walls and closed the doors of the entertainment center to protect the TV, but he still didn’t really know what to expect—he was expecting it to hurt, and he was just desperately hoping that he was wrong about that.

The Council formed a wide triangle around Darren and Chris, who stood back to back in the middle of the living room. Chris could feel his heartbeat hammering against his chest, and where their hands brushed against each other he could feel Darren’s fingers shaking.

The Council began to chant in a low tone that Chris vaguely recognized as Ancient Arcana before the words were blocked out with a high-pitched buzzing in his ears that drowned out all the other noise. Spots danced behind his eyes and he fell to his knees—it felt like he had swallowed fire and that his insides were gasoline; he was exploding and condensing all at once, expanding and imploding, and he was, for sure, going to die.

 

When Chris opened his eyes, the first thing he realized was that he was not actually dead. The second was that he was face down on Darren’s carpet. The third was that judging by the groaning from somewhere behind him, Darren was just waking up too.

Chris sat up slowly, mentally checking his body for any injuries beyond the incredible soreness that was radiating all over. It didn’t seem like there were any; his limbs still moved the way they were supposed to, none of his hair had been burned off and his skin still looked pretty much skin-like.

When he reached over toward the couch to help himself up, a blast of power shot from his hand and set the couch on fire.

“I got it!” Cory said, snapping his fingers to extinguish the flame. Lea, next to him, waved her hand and undid the damage to the furniture—none of which really registered to Chris, who had just accidentally cast magic like he was a preteen again.

“What—what happened?” Chris managed, carefully retracting his hand to rub his face. Maybe just sitting on the floor wasn’t such a bad idea.

“We helped you,” Chord said, trying to sound gentle but mostly just sounding self-congratulatory. “We’ve brought you up, raised you so you can understand your true powers,”

“My true powers are burning the apartment down?” Chris asked, squinting doubtfully at where the flames had sprouted up just a moment before.

“I hope not,” Darren muttered. “I need my security deposit back.”

“No, no,” Lea said, moving away from Cory to kneel in front of Chris. “It seems, Chistopher, that you, deep inside, have been gifted with control of the elements,”

Chris stared at her. “Is elemental magic even…even a thing?”

Lea nodded. “It’s rare, and if nothing else, it only graces those who can truly control it. So I have every faith in you,” She beamed. She looked so very Italian up close, but also so young. Almost no resemblance to the woman who had disappeared them from the chambers a week prior.

“What about him?” Chris asked after a minute, nodding to Darren, who was still slightly bent over his knees with the heels of his palms pressed against his eyes.

Chord smiled sympathetically. “He was a little more advanced than you were,” he explained. “His true gift is just an increase of what he’s always had. You were the tricky one,” he added, shrugging.

“So, we have to go,” Cory said after a minute. “I know this is hard, but just—try to take it easy. Don’t do anything too magically strenuous over the next few days; we’ll get in contact with you once you’ve rested.”

Lea returned to his arms and Chord stood next to her on the other side, and then they were gone again.

“So how do—” Chris started, but Darren held up a hand for him to stop.

“Shhh,” Darren said softly, returning his hand to his eyes. “It’s so bright.” Chris didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything. “I can feel your questions and—and everything. I feel okay, overwhelmed and kinda sick and tired and I’m afraid if I open my eyes I’ll go blind, but I’m okay. I’m alive.”

Chris nodded slowly. “I should…probably go home,”

Darren shook his head, risking a peek over his fingers. “Stay here. The only thing that would be worse than that is you not being here.”

Chris wasn’t sure if it was Darren’s new gift working to the extreme, but he agreed. He wasn’t even sure if whether or not Darren’s gift was an effect on his decision mattered.

 

They spent the next three days locked in Darren’s apartment, with Joey occasionally interrupting them to bring food, ask about sports or remind them about their homework but mostly leaving them alone, for which Chris was grateful. They were working out their powers; Chris could summon and control the elements, but he didn’t know how much that actually covered. Fire, of course, water to put it out, a literal ice, and he discovered that he could mold the earth beneath his feet if he focused on it. Light was also an element, they realized on the second night when Chris hiccupped after too much wine and shut off all the bulbs in the room. It took him sneezing to get them all back on again. What else Chris could control, he didn’t know, but he found himself hoping that maybe that was just—it, because that was more than enough.

Darren, for his part, had grown his powers a little differently. People had always liked him, and he had always been able to get the general gist of how a person was feeling or reacting to him, but seeing the world after the Council was through with him was like putting on glasses for the first time, like seeing it in 1080p. It was almost empathic but deeper than that, almost psychic but less literal than that. People were everywhere, and he knew them all, and all of them knew him, even if they didn’t know it yet. More than once over those three days, the love he could feel radiating all around him had nearly brought him to tears, while Joey’s brief bout of irritation over a dropped mug had almost sent him flying into a rage. He was more of an emotional sponge than he had ever been before, but by the third day he was learning how to separate other people’s emotions from his own.

On the third day, Chris received a phone call.

His grandmother had died, and he needed to come home.

“I need to go home,” Chris said dully, sitting on the edge of Darren’s bed, phone blinking “call ended” in his hand. “I have to go home.”

“I’ll drive you to the airport,” Darren said without even being asked. It wasn’t until Chris was actually on the plane did he realize that Darren had also packed him a bag filled with his clothes, which after sleeping in the same bed as the man was oddly comforting. Chris had almost asked him to go with, and he could tell that Darren would’ve, but he could see the fear in Darren’s eyes over that many people experiencing that intense of feelings, and he couldn’t ask it of him.

 

The funeral and wake were long, and awful, and Chris cried a lot, but he managed not to burn anything down or accidentally drown himself in the shower, even when that was kind of what he felt like doing.

 

Darren was waiting for him when he got off the plane. Chris didn’t know how he’d known when or where his flight was getting in, but he chose not to question it, because Darren was waiting there with open arms.

Chris was never all that big on physical contact, and there had been so many hugs over his time at home, but without any conscious choice on his part he marched over to Darren and let his head find the crook of his shoulder, let his arms wrap snugly around him and let himself relax and just be held, which had never quite managed at home.

“I’m sorry,” Darren said softly into his ear.

“I know,” Chris responded. “Me too.” Chris pulled back a little then and saw the tears in Darren’s eyes, but he shook his head. “No, hey, it’s okay. She—she was a great old lady, and she was really happy. Don’t cry. I mean—cry if you need to, but, um, don’t cry for me. There’ve been too many tears already.”

Darren forced a smile then and nodded. He took Chris’ bag from him and slid it over his shoulder, then offered a winning grin. “I’ve been feeding Brian for you,” he explained as they walked over to Joey’s car. “Once when I was there, your friend came by. At least I think she was your friend.” Darren paused. “She tried to MACE me,”

Chris had to laugh, which felt foreign and still a little wrong. “That’s Ashley,”

They dropped Darren’s clothes (freshly washed) off at home, and then they struck out on foot without a clear destination. They ended up at one of the little parks, not saying much of anything, just enjoying the quiet of the night and the orangey glow of the streetlights when—

Darren must have felt it before Chris did, because he pulled hard on Chris’ hand and moved into a defensive position, but didn’t release Chris’ hand.

“It’s here,” he muttered, just loud enough for Chris to hear. Chris nodded slowly and retracted his hand from Darren’s to hold it cautiously in front of him—another thing they’d discovered about Chris’ power was that he no longer really relied on the written word for support; the words in his mind were more than enough.

“Where?” Chris asked in a hush, suddenly aware of the eerie silence that had fallen over the park.

“Here,” a hoarse, crackling voice said, and suddenly before them was what Chris had always imagined a dementor to look like: black and purple and sucking the life and happiness right out of the world. Darren was right, it was vaguely humanoid in shape, but that was where the humanity seemed to end.

“You are the new members of the Council, and I will kill you,” the shadow said, and then there was that wall of blackness that Darren had described. Reflexively, Chris held up his hands and a barrier formed between them, letting the shadows fall harmlessly around them. Darren, next to him, was beginning to glow faintly, but Chris could tell he was struggling already.

“Together?” Chris said, dropping his left hand momentarily. Darren nodded and touched fingers with him, and then Chris was sending every spell he could think of at the shape—fire and ice and light and darkness, but none of it was working, none of it was hitting the target. It’s was like he wasn’t even—

“Wait,” Chris said slowly. “Give me your hand. Focus on—feel where I’m focusing,” Chris said, grabbing Darren’s hand and winding his fingers through. Earth was arguably his weakest element, but keeping one hand up in the barrier between them, Chris began to feel the ground, feel the bumps and hollows and—

And feet. Shadows didn’t have feet.

“It’s an illusion!” Chris shouted, wincing as another wall of blackness crashed over them and physically pushed them back an inch or two. “Can you—”

“I feel him alright,” Darren said through gritted teeth, and the glow around his body intensified. As it did, the barrier around the both of them glowed brighter blue, and Chris grinned to himself. Better together.

It was hard to multitask the elements, but keeping half his mind focused on the earth and the feet that were standing on it—while trying to feel up to legs in the air, hair in the wind—Chris sent another round of spells, fire, light and then—ice hit, the ice had hit something physical and real. It was like a hole had been punched through the darkness, and they could barely make out a pair of jeans beyond the wall of deepest dark.

“Do that again!” Darren said. “I can feel him. He’s fucking—he’s so—”

“Tall?” Came the voice again, along with a definitive snicker. Chris’ blood ran cold, but not as cold as the ice he shot out again. As he did, Darren let out a shout and all of a sudden his ice wasn’t just ice it was ice and Darren’s gift, bright purple and headed straight for where the voice’s head might be.

It hit with a satisfying crunch, and the wall disappeared. Chris and Darren, hands still linked, slowly made their way over to where the body had crumbled.

It was Jack. The Jack from Chris’ creative writing class.

“How,” Chris said slowly. “How are you—how are _you_ …”

“People always underestimate me,” Jack gritted out, body like rigor mortis with a physical layer of ice encasing most of his body and keeping the shadowy things he was feeling to himself. “Wanted to prove people were wrong. People should be afraid of—”

Chris sent another ice wave over his mouth, and then they had a frozen necromancer beneath their feet.

“We should probably call—”

“We’re already here,” Chord said as he materialized in front of them, Cory and Lea following a second after, mouth set in a grim line. “And we need to ask you to do one more thing,”

“What,” Chris said, suddenly woozy from the energy spent defending and attacking at the same time.

“Use your power to freeze his, so that Darren can get in there and—and see what’s going on inside his head. See what powers he has.”

Darren shook his head slowly. “I already know. They’re like mine, but—but not natural. He’s an Illusionist by birth who—who wanted to be real, and taken—taken seriously.” Darren shook his head and squeezed Chris’ hand once. “He trained himself to be a Soul Speaker and then he—he fed off the souls and their powers,”

“How do you know that?” Lea asked, looking between the frozen warlock on Darren.

“I could feel it. I could see it. I could feel _them_ , inside of him,” Darren admitted, staring down like he didn’t even know what he was looking at.

“Do you think you can release them?” Chris asked softly, drawing Darren’s attention away from the body and to Chris himself. “If I help you?”

Darren nodded slowly. “Maybe if you help me.” Darren and Chris sat down next to Jack’s icy self, which was entirely frozen until Darren asked Chris to melt a small area on his forehead, which Chris managed to do without completely melting him or setting him on fire. Then, Darren pressed two fingers to that one patch of skin and he began to glow. After a minute, the body began to glow too, faint and then white and yellow and bright orange-red.

Darren let out a choked sob, and then it was all over and he was curled up against Chris’ frame. The purple shadow that had been trapped between the ice and Jack was gone, and he was the freshman from Chris’ writing class again.

“What are you going to do to him?” Chris asked slowly, looking up at the Council. Cory looked from Chord to Lea, and then from Jack to Chris and offered a small smile.

“If you want, you can help us decide.” Cory said, which didn’t make sense to Chris—was it because they had been the one to take him out? “We think—we think that maybe, some of our rules might be a little… outdated. And we think you two are powerful enough and smart enough and creative enough to help us change a little. So, if you’re interested in being Councilmen, your first decision can be to help create the punishment for this warlock here.” Cory kicked the edge of the ice lightly with his shoe.

“Can we think about it?” Chris asked after a few moments of thought. “It’s—it’s been kind of a long day.” A long week, a long month. A long life.

Lea seemed about to object, but Chord stepped in. “Yeah, of course. We’ll keep him cool until you decide one way or the other. Good luck,” he added, then reached down to touch the ice with a finger and disappear.

Cory stepped back to do the same, but Lea stood there for another moment or two, looking down at the boys who seemed to believe that each other was the only thing that separated them from the end of the world.

“Thank you,” she said softly, and she meant it, because maybe it really was the end of the world.

 

As Cory and Lea disappeared, Darren and Chris did too, by some gift of the Council. They ended up in Darren’s bed, which was just fine with both Darren and Chris, who were all to eager to get back under the covers and sleep forever.

“Hey,” Darren said sleepily as he pulled the duvet up around them both. “Together? Together seemed like a good idea,”

Chris smiled a little sleepily. “I’m smart that way.” Before he could even say goodnight, Darren kissed him, so gently and so chastely it made Chris blush.

“I like us and together being a thing,” Darren said with a yawn. “That should be a thing.”

There was nobody Chris had felt more in tune with, ever. His grandmother had told him about the lines of the universe, and how sometimes they brought you to who you needed to have, and he couldn’t help but think that maybe, he was supposed to have had Darren in his life.

“Maybe it should,” Chris agreed faintly. “We’ll talk in the morning,” he decided, too tired to be logical. “But Darren?” Darren hummed in response, so Chris scooted over and kissed him, too. “I like us and together, too.”

 

Their first act as a couple was to make pancakes the next morning, more than the two of them and Joey could ever eat. Their first act as Councilmen was to appoint Ashley as the sixth Councilperson and second Councilwoman, which was fairly unheard of, but Darren had only had to make the briefest of arguments before the others caved—they hadn’t quite yet figured out how to fight against his gift, and that suited Darren just fine.

Their second act as Councilmen was to punish Jack. They stripped him of his powers and erased his memory—Cory and Chord wanted to kill him, but Chris and Darren had firmly put their feet down, if only because Darren had been able to free the souls and let them go to their final resting place, wherever that was. Darren had tracked his magic to his hideout where he was keeping the bodies in stasis; the two Councilwomen had actually died trying to fight him, as had a couple of other witches, which led to the first regional gathering of magical folk since the fist Council had banned Covens: the news of the Necromancer had traveled far, and many witches wanted a way to properly mourn those who had fallen to him.

One cool night in early November, witches from all over the country gathered with the Council on the banks of the Hudson and watched as they sent five burning boats into the water, protected from the mundane view by layers of spells. The boats themselves were empty since the families had wanted to give them a more traditional burial, but to those in attendance, it was a mighty funeral.

That Thanksgiving, with Darren on one side of him and Hannah on the other, Chris announced that he had gotten a movie deal for a story he was writing called _Struck By Lightning_ , and he realized that maybe, when you weren’t looking, that all of the dreams he hadn’t even ever thought possible to dream had somehow come true: he had the makings of a career, he could understand and use his magic more effectively than ever in ways he knew his grandmother would be proud of, he was somehow still getting nearly-straight As in his classes, and somehow more importantly, he had Darren, and that meant he had everything he could ever need.


End file.
